The Earth’s Wild Places
Your eyes, your mouth, your hands,
the public highways.
Hands, like truck stops,
semis rumbling in the corners,
Eyes like the bank clerk’s window
foreign exchange.
I love all the parts of your body
friends hug your suburbs
farmlands are given a nod
but I know the path
to your wilderness.
It’s not that I like it best,
but we’re almost always
alone there,
and it’s scary but also calm.
by Gary Snyder
from This Present Moment
Counterpoint Press, Berkeley,2015